Review: Folded, pleated, burned, torn: Artist Samantha Thomas’ tactile webs of intrigue
Samantha Thomas’ fabric wall works at the L.A. gallery Anat Ebgi are steeped in art history. Their folded, stitched and cut surfaces evoke all manner of abstraction, from the sliced canvases of Lucio Fontana to the gestural webs of Jackson Pollack and the evocative volumes of Eva Hesse.
There is nothing new here — reworking art historical traditions in thread and cloth is a well-trodden path — but Thomas takes on her project with an assured hand.
Thomas refers to this equivalence directly in “Drip,” a length of rope whose looped end has been coated in bright red acrylic. It’s both a paint drip and a blood-dipped noose.
Anat Ebgi, 2660 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 838-2770, through April 23. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.anatebgi.com
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